After the chatter slowed down, I then stated, “Well I guess it's time for us to get cleaned up, and to be honest, I’m ready to hit the sack afterward.”
Angela spoke up, “Yeah Lulu; it’s way past your bedtime.”
“Don’t forget, Mike is going to get everyone up early tomorrow. By the way, who’s got the night watch tonight to listen to the shortwave?”
Wit responded, “Brandy and I do. We’ll also be setting up more of the medical gear.”
Suddenly, the dogs started barking, not their normal bark at the moonlight type bark, but like something was out there. Then the perimeter alarm started beeping. Listening to the pattern, I could tell it was the driveway alarm. Everyone turned quiet, but I said, “It could be an animal setting it off.” I walked to the kitchen, where the light was off and looked out the window. I could see a single human figure standing in the dark, at the end of the driveway.
I quietly yelled, “Mike, go out the back door and go around the house.” He grabbed his .308, radio, and tac light. I told Mo to go to the front door and wait until he heard me yell. He grabbed the tactical 12 gauge that was loaded with OO buckshot and his radio. I then told everyone else to stay away from the windows, and I grabbed my M-4, attaching the tac light and grabbed another radio and went out the back door to the corner of the house.
Mike came over the radio saying, “He looks like he’s alone and he does have a pack on his back.”
As the figure approached, I placed the beam of the green laser from the M-4 on the person’s chest and turned on the tac light, which in the pitch black had to be blinding. I yelled out, “Stop where you are! There are three guns on you.” Mike then turned on his tac light from the corner of the other side of the house and Mo slipped out the front door and took up the prone position.
The person stopped immediately, and you could tell they couldn’t see anything due to the tac light. Then I heard a familiar voice say, “Dad? Don’t shoot. It’s me, Paul.”
Even though I recognized his voice as Paul’s, it took me a couple of moments to accept the idea.
If it was Paul, how did he get out of prison? I looked again, and it was him. Over the radio, I said, “It’s Paul.” I then told Paul to come on up.
I walked up to him, and we gave each other a big hug and Paul started to cry as he embraced me, which caused me to choke up a bit.
“How? How did you get out and how did you get up here?”
“It’s a long story.”
Mike walked up about that time, and Paul immediately embraced him as well. Mike gave him a hug back but not with a lot of affection.
Mike had a serious problem with Paul. Not because he was a cop and Paul was a prisoner but for several other reasons. The first was the path that Paul chose to take in life. Mike looked up to him when they were kids. As many younger brothers do, he wanted to hang out with Paul, especially after the divorce of his mother and me. Then as they got older, Paul started going down the wrong road.
He also had a problem with the way Paul acted when their mother was dying of cancer. Paul was in his drug-induced state most of the time, and he doesn’t even know if Paul visited their mom when she was in the hospital her final days. All he knows for sure is when he went down to visit her to basically say goodbye, Paul never showed up, even though he was in the same town as the hospital.
Soon after I’d made contact with Paul after he went to prison, every time Paul would call, the main purpose was to ask for money to be deposited in his account. After several times of this, I started questioning if Paul had learned anything and I was about to cut off any financial aid. Mike though, had a talk with me and convinced me to keep sending money.
Even though he was completely disappointed with Paul, he still loved him.
Mo came over and asked Paul, “Do you remember me?” Paul was clueless who he was at first, but the minute I said his name, he remembered him.
We all went inside. Paul needed to shave pretty bad, and he definitely needed a shower but making it from prison to here, under the conditions, I was amazed he looked as good as he did.
Kim immediately gave him a hug. Then Tag, Wit, and Red all came up to him and greeted him with genuine affection. Wit noticing the bump on his head checked it out and then gave him a chemical ice pack to put on it.
Paul was completely confused how all of them were here. He met the women, and you could tell he was in shock when he asked who was married to who and he found out that Mia, Carmen, and Brandy weren’t married or attached to any of the guys. He had a look, like, “Who are these women and why are they here?”
Kim asked, “Are you hungry? I can warm you up something pretty quick.”
Even though he had a decent meal just a couple of hours earlier, he wasn’t going to turn down real food.
“Oh yeah, anything is fine though.”
We all sat down, and he told the entire story, starting from the prison on. By the time he was done, I think we were all amazed at what happened. I notice he kept looking over at Mia and while he was telling us how he almost forgot which road we lived on, he stopped in mid-sentence and looked directly at Mia, “Oh my God! You’re Donna, off “Together.” He glanced at me, then back to her and finally said, “How is this possible? I got to watch your show on Saturday nights. Don’t take this in the wrong way but you were very popular with a lot of the inmates.”
Mia smiled, then kind of frowned and then with a puzzled look but with a laugh, said, “Thank you. I think.” We all got a chuckle out of that.
We confirmed to him that it was an EMP and about Washington being nuked and how we didn’t have a federal government. Then, while we were telling him what our plans were, Red announced he was going to take a shower.
Paul immediately asked, “You have running water? I understand about the lights but how do you have water?”
We told him the story, and I told him how if we didn’t get more gas, it wouldn’t last for very long.
Then we heard Red yell. We burst out laughing when we realized it was due to the shock of the cold water. The well was a spring-fed well, and it was cold. We all experienced that desire to yell as all of us guys took turns taking a shower.
While everyone was moving about, either getting ready to take a shower or getting ready to go to bed, Paul said, “Mike, Dad, Kim, I want to say to you guys how sorry I am. Mike, I know you're disappointed with me, and if I could go back in time, there are so many things I’d change. I’m sorry for hurting all of you the way I did.
Dad, you and I have talked on the phone, so this won’t be news to you, but if it hadn't been for me turning to God, I would have turned into another hard prison case. I had to repent to him, and now I want to repent to you. I want to prove to all three of you that I’ll never go down the wrong path again. I know I’ll have to prove that and that’s what I’m going to do.”
“Paul, this is going to be a new way of life for all of us, so as far as I’m concerned, your slate is clean,” Kim said giving Paul another hug.
“I want to do the same thing, Paul. We love you, and I honestly believe that God has some purpose for you. He was obviously helping you through prison, and it sounds like he really watched over you from the EMP incident and all the way home.” I gave him a hug as well.
Mike was quiet and just looked at Paul. Finally, he said, “Ok Paul. We’ll see. I’m willing to let the past go, but I will say that you did hurt all of us. I’ll forgive, but it may take a little bit to forget completely.”
“All I want is a chance.” as he stuck his hand out and they both shook.
Chapter Twenty-Four
As everyone took their showers, they headed to their respective beds. Wit offered to let Paul sleep in his bed in the travel trailer since he had the night watch. We all said our goodnights and Red led Paul to the trailer.
Kim and I climbed into bed and talked about how amazing Paul’s story was.
“It’s amazing how he survived the airplane crash at the prison. I mean the who
le thing he went through is amazing.”
“I know. I think you were right though; God does have some purpose for him. I mean even his life in prison and being moved to that honor prison after only three years. That’s unheard of with what he was convicted of.”
“You’re right. I must admit, it takes a big worry from me. I didn’t say much about it, but a few times I worried that they just locked the gates and the guards left them all to die. I had to force myself not to think about it.”
“I had the same thoughts.” After a pause, she said with a laugh, “I’m so glad we have the running water so that he could take a shower. He was rank when he got here. He smelled almost as bad as you did.”
“Oh really! Well, if you want, I can go get my dirty clothes, and you can use them as a pillow.” Then I immediately started tickling her. After fighting me for a while, she looked at me and asked, “You know it’s been a while, do you want to fool around?”
“Are you kidding? You don’t have to ask me twice.”
During the next two weeks, everything started coming together with what we needed to get done.
The very next day, Jake and I moved the mobile home onto our property next to the travel trailer. Red and Wit moved into the mobile home, and Paul took the travel trailer.
Mike had everyone, including me, show that we could load, unload, clear and operate every weapon we had. The biggest challenge for some was where the safeties were on each gun, and a couple of them got confused because the Glock’s have no external safety. All of its safeties are internal.
He then had anyone that had never fired a certain type weapon, do so. He was shocked at how good Carmen and Brandy shot. Of course, he had seen Kim shoot before. Mia was fair and anxious to learn, but Angela just complained the whole time. Mike almost lost his cool with her. Mo finally stepped in and pulled her to the side. I don’t know what was said, but when she came back, she had a more cooperative attitude, even though she had to repeat a couple of times that she didn’t like guns and still didn’t feel that all of this was necessary. Even though Paul had been around guns his whole life, he needed to get in some practice as it’d been some time since he had shot and especially a variety of different types of guns.
The biggest challenge was when he had everyone demonstrate how to use the Saw Machine Gun. We all had to do that, except for Wit, as it had been a while for us guys since we’d been around one and of course the girls never had. We made the decision not to have anyone actually shoot it, which was a disadvantage but we didn’t want to use up that much ammo or let everyone in the area know we had one. There was an argument made that if we shot the automatic weapons and unethical people in the area heard it, they would be discouraged from trying anything. But I had learned that unethical people would usually go after what they want, especially if it gives them an advantage. It would be our ace in the hole. The same rule applied to the M-16.
Mike was taking his job very seriously. Just as soon as everyone shot, he showed them how to clean the weapons and made them do it. Soon after that, he had us move one of the 8-foot x 8-foot x 10-foot deer hunting platforms that he built for me for a Father’s Day, up to the front yard to be used as an observation tower of the road and Aker’s field. He then had us move the second one to the backyard to observe our field.
He also requested that we dig a form of spider holes to be used for observation. A spider hole is different than a foxhole as it’s a deep hole that’s hidden to be used for observation or a sniper position, but it’s only large enough for a single person in a standing position. Both the Vietnamese and Japanese used them for their tunnel systems during the war.
We got the battery system set up in the house and the mobile home and hooked up the perimeter alarms to the system. Now we’d be alerted, even when we didn’t have the generator running.
Wit and Red started patrolling the area using their motorcycles. When they’d find something larger that we could use, they’d call on their radios, and Tag and Mo would pick it up with the jeep and my 8-foot x 10-foot trailer. For instance, they found an abandoned tractor/trailer which apparently was hauling produce for a grocery store. Someone had already cut the lock and took whatever can goods were in it as we found several empty boxes, but they obviously weren’t thinking as they left 5 cases of toilet paper, 3 cases of paper towels, a pallet with 24 bags of dried dog food and a case of white vinegar.
Jake also added two supports to the motorcycle's saddlebags, where they could carry two 5-gallon army gas cans, one on each side. They had already brought back about 60 gallons of gasoline.
I had been working on the airstrip all week. I ended up brush hogging a 50-foot wide strip the length of the field, then tilled the same area and then I used my heavy-duty blade to smooth it down. After taking several paths with the blade in the normal position, I then turned the blade 180 degrees and used the back side to smooth the ground. Thank goodness my blade is an extremely heavy blade. I paid extra for this type, and I was glad I did. A normal light blade that so many people buy, wouldn’t be near as effective.
We also got the swimming pool put up and filled. The extremely hot days actually turned out to be a blessing because the water was so cold. The heat of the day warmed up the water within a couple of days. Due to the extra car batteries Wit and Red found, we were able to set up a 12-battery bank to operate the pool's filter. We had to rotate the batteries every other day, so we could charge the batteries using the solar panels on the house.
Kim, Carmen, Mia, and Angela continued with the garden and even started canning the meat from the freezers.
Paul ask me about how we met Mia and Carmen the very next day. I told him the story and how close we had all become.
Paul turned out to be a really hard worker. I just wish he would’ve worked this hard in his younger years. He had worked out in prison a lot, and he had some serious muscles now. Since the last time I had seen him before the prison thing, he had gained a good 20 lbs. just in muscle.
He had also volunteered to be one of the night watchmen every night. He was the one that heard on the shortwave radio that Russia had reported that their satellite imagery had shown that most American cities were burning down to the ground, due to the lack of firefighting equipment and even water to fight the fires. The fires had spread from one building to another.
They also reported news that devastated Mia and Carmen for a while. They reported that imagery had shown that southern California must have finally had the “big one” that had been talked about for decades. They made the analysis from the destruction that was shown, from north of San Diego to 100 miles north of Los Angeles. Also, uncontrolled fires had burned up much of the rubble caused by the quake. Mia and Carmen both had a hard time with it for a couple of days, thinking about their friends that lived in the area.
We had heard more traffic out driving around, usually at a distance. Some of them sounded like older tractors. You could tell because older tractors, just like my John Deere, have a distinct sound to them. We also started hearing what sounded like several dirt bikes or ATVs riding together but they always seemed distant, and it was always to our east.
At the end of the week, we picked up Blake and his family and had a swimming party for the kids. Lulu loved it as she had someone to play with. Even Jake brought his kids up.
Blake told us how two of his steers had been killed and butchered during the night. Someone had snuck in and done the job without him even knowing it. He was surprised that Abel apparently didn’t even realize it was going on. Whoever did it, had cut the steers throats and obviously waited until they bled out.
We finally had a meeting with the four houses on our road. Len and Paula Aker’s that lives at the intersection at the end of our road on the west side. They had two sons, Phillip, and Harold that were 21 and 19 years old. They still lived at home with their parents as they worked on the farm.
Then there was Eric and Rebecca Jones that lives at the intersection on the east side. They were an olde
r couple, probably in their seventies. Across the road from them was Jim and Sarah Simpson. They had no children, and before the first meeting I’d never seen Jim before, but Sarah would always wave as she drove by the house coming home from her job.
Then of course, Jake and us. The Jones weren’t in the best of shape. They’d been using water that they got out of the creek and they were almost out of food. They didn’t let anyone know as they didn’t want to impose on anyone else. The Simpsons had been getting their water from the same creek. We agreed to supply both families with water and gave the Jones a variety of canned goods, four loaves of bread and some Ensure Nutrition Shakes. Kim also insisted that we’d provide dinner for them every night, which Eric refused at first but after Kim’s persistence and Brandy using Rebecca’s obvious frail health, he finally agreed but insisted it was on a short-term basis only.
Wit and Brandy also gave them as much of a medical check over as they could. They had to treat Mrs. Jones for a cut that she had on her foot, that was infected. After cleaning the wound up, they also gave her several 500 mg. Amoxicillin to take for the infection.
The Simpsons had a big garden and also had three Holstein Milk cows. We immediately made arrangements to trade with them for milk, and they volunteered to provide milk to the Jones. After drinking powdered milk for the last two weeks, the fresh milk was a big blessing.
The Aker’s were commercial farmers and owned several thousand acres in the area, and 660 of those acres were across the road from us. They got their water supply from a well that was used for their irrigation system, and they said they had enough food stored to last them a while.
We all made the comment that we had heard a lot of gunfire, usually at night, from the so-called town of Pine City, that was about ¾ of a mile from the Akers. Pine City had a terrible reputation for drugs, domestic disputes, and even a rumored meth lab. During normal times, you’d hear sirens from deputies’ vehicles heading there for something.
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